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U.S. Intelligence Chief Defends Egypt Reports

WASHINGTON — The U.S. director of national intelligence sought Thursday to defend the intelligence community against criticism that it had failed to more clearly warn of the recent crisis in Egypt, saying that the buildup of potentially explosive pressures had been amply reported but that the specific triggers to action were far harder to predict.

“We are not clairvoyant,” said the director, James R. Clapper Jr., at a hearing of the House intelligence committee.

The intelligence community has faced criticism for failing to provide a clearer warning, or more timely descriptions, of the fast-moving developments in Egypt. President Barack Obama and other top administration officials have repeatedly seemed to be scrambling to catch up with events.

But Mr. Clapper, and also Leon E. Panetta, the director of central intelligence, suggested that it would always be difficult to know precisely when a potentially critical situation would turn explosive — to know, for example, when a frustrated merchant in Tunisia would set himself afire, an event that indirectly fed into the Egyptian crisis.

“Specific triggers for how and when instability would lead to the collapse of various regimes cannot always be known or predicted,” Mr. Clapper said, at a hearing on worldwide threats to the United States. “What intelligence can do in most cases is reduce the uncertainty for decision makers, but not necessarily eliminate it.”

Mr. Panetta, in turn, said that last year nearly 400 intelligence reports were produced on problems in the region: “the regressive regimes, the economic and political instability, a stagnation, the lack of freedoms, the need for political reforms.” But he, too, said that intelligence agencies needed to do better in identifying triggering events.

Mr. Panetta listed some of the pressures for change that have been building in the region: the “large unmet expectations of the people”; the large numbers of youth, many of them well-educated but jobless; and the dynamic role of the Internet.

“That’s something we need to pay a lot more attention to in today’s world,” he said.

Another crucial factor, he said, was the role of the military.

“There’s always been a feeling that the military ultimately could control any demonstration in any regime,” Mr. Panetta said. “But the loyalty of the military is now something that we have to pay attention to, because it’s not always one that will respond to what a dictator may or may not want.”

The comment had particular resonance on a day when, reports suggested, Mr. Mubarak was poised to step down under pressure from his military.

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Asked how he would rate the intelligence that the American agencies had provided policy makers on Egypt, Mr. Clapper’s self-evaluation was not ungenerous. He said he would grade it as a B-plus or perhaps an A-minus.

But committee members also seemed willing to give the intelligence community the benefit of the doubt. American intelligence professionals “do not have a crystal ball and cannot predict the future,” said Representative C.A. Ruppersberger of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the committee.

Indeed, shortly after Mr. Panetta told the committee that there was “a strong likelihood that Mubarak may step down this evening,” officials rushed out to clarify that the director’s assessment was based only on press reports, not on any inside information.